your one stop for dorm room culinary experiments

Flan

Eggs eggs eggs.
Some of you might have noticed that my last three recipes have been centered around eggs. I love eggs, and really what’s not to love? They are fun, easy, and best of all cheap!

This week we’ll be making the delightful desert enjoyed all over the world known, at least in America as flan. We will also be taking a closer look at the egg. Follow me after the break to explore what makes this ingredient one of my all time faves.

Eggs are simply delicious any way you cook them. Weather it’s scrambled, over easy, or in a cake the egg never fails to deliver. Eggs are extremely high in protein, classifying them as a meat. They are enjoyed all over the world in almost every culture and the number of ways they are prepared is unending.

Something every culinary aspiree needs to know is how to interpret the grade of an egg. Eggs come in three grades AA, A, and B. The grades refer to the relative freshness of the egg, with AA being the most fresh and B being the least fresh. You might think to yourself “Do I really need a grade AA fresh egg for cooking something as simple as a cake?” and the answer is no. For most recipes grade B is very acceptable, and in a few cases even preferred*.

Any time you will be cooking the yolk and the white separately (not scrambled together) you might want to think twice about skimping on the quality, or leaving your eggs in the fridge for too long. This is because as an egg ages the Chalaza dissolves. The Chalaza is the part of the egg that separates the white from the yolk. In an egg with no Chalaza the egg would be pre-scrambled, with no clear distinction between white and yolk**.

Enough about eggs, today we’re cooking flan. It’s not certain where this dish originated (my guess is Germany along with the quiche) but today it is enjoyed all over the world. In France they call it ‘crème caramel,’ and in Japan it is often enjoyed in pre-packaged individual pudding cups.

It’s really easy to make (but takes forever) and if you’ve been following my blog the recipe is going to look very familiar.

6 eggs (3 whole, 3 yolks) You can freeze the left over whites and use them in your next angelfood cake

1 cup half and half

1 1/2 cups milk

1/2 cup sugar

1 dash vanilla extract (or any extract if you want to mix it up a little

the hardware is gonna be very similar to last week too:

2-4 custard cups

casserole/cake pan at least a few inches deep

toaster oven

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix up all your ingredients in a bowl and get ready to bake.

For traditional flan put a bit of sugar and water in the bottom of the custard cups and microwave for about 2 minutes (keep an eye on it. I burned some sugar). For non traditional flan jelly and chocolate syrup works too.

Put the custard cups into the cake pan and pour warm water around them.

Bake for 40 minutes and fridge for an hour. Serve chilled and enjoy!

*the century egg is an egg that has been fermented in a mixture of clay, wood ash, salt, lime, and rice straw for several weeks to several months

**Might be great for scrambled boiled eggs. Shake and bake, I like the sound of that